5 ms·

While I think this is true in some strict sense, I see a lot of people cite this as an excuse for intolerance against various groups. If a person can convince t

While I think this is true in some strict sense, I see a lot of people cite this as an excuse for intolerance against various groups. If a person can convince themselves that a group or person is intolerant, then the target deserves [unlimited] intolerance. And with a moral license like that, the standard for what constitutes “tolerance” basically vanishes. “Intolerance” becomes a property of groups we (especially people with powerful platforms like journalists and academics) already dislike.

danharaj 8y ago
It's already the case that you can ascribe any quality to any group by fiat and so therefore any criteria for being intolerant can be abused in the way that you say. There is nothing you can do to preclude dishonesty and sophistry.
- weberc2 8y ago
  I don’t know; we didn’t used to have such a problem with dishonesty and sophestry. Integrity and morality generally was sort of rewarded with social currency, but that was considered old-fashioned and we did away with it. It wasn’t a perfect system, but I think we may have taken a wrong turn.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    I'm pretty sure Plato had been complaining about this stuff. I suppose we didn't use to have those problens before civilization became a thing.
    - weberc2 8y ago
      To be clear, I wasn't arguing that never before nor anywhere in the world was there ever issues with sophistry and dishonesty. Plato didn't live in America in the 1990s and 2000s.
colordrops 8y ago
And that is the reason why the definition of free speech is in the US is so encompassing and has so few exceptions.
claudiawerner 8y ago
The issue you seem to have with it is that people are convincing themselves a group is intolerant, so your implication is that the group isn't really intolerant. I actually only rarely see people argue for "unlimited" intolerance of some groups - often, for instance, they don't pursue a legal amendment to absolutely stop these people speaking, but rather suggest a valid tactic would be to not give them platforms. So the issue here ins't tolerance itsef, but rather its demarcation. I'm sure we would both agree that there are intolerant groups in society, and if the paradox holds any imperative force at all, then we ought to put our best philosophic and critical work towards finding in what cases that's true. That doesn't mean we should simply tolerate groups and stop looking into the matter.
- weberc2 8y ago
  > The issue you seem to have with it is that people are convincing themselves a group is intolerant, so your implication is that the group isn't really intolerant. The phenomenon I’m describing is one in which people invent reasons post-facto for why their target should be considered “intolerant” and why they deserve the hate and harassment levied at them. If an example helps, consider Damore or the Christakis. > I actually only rarely see people argue for "unlimited" intolerance of some groups - often, for instance, they don't pursue a legal amendment to absolutely stop these people speaking, but rather suggest a valid tactic would be to not give them platforms. I didn’t mean to imply that people were calling explicitly for unlimited intolerance, but rather that it is implied when someone “punished” severely a member of their outgroup for an alleged infraction that would be considered minor by any reasonable person if it were true at all. For example, a racist journalist doxxing a teenager in a slanderous piece, rationalizing the treatment as warranted because the teen was wearing a t-shirt for a musician who had one vaguely misogynistic song. > So the issue here ins't tolerance itsef, but rather its demarcation. I'm sure we would both agree that there are intolerant groups in society, and if the paradox holds any imperative force at all, then we ought to put our best philosophic and critical work towards finding in what cases that's true. That doesn't mean we should simply tolerate groups and stop looking into the matter. I’m not sure if I agree with this or not, so I’ll just rephrase—this paradox is used to justify mobbing, harassing, threatening, and assaulting a lot of innocent people (or people whose infractions were trivial). We should do our best to minimize intolerance, but mobs virtually always do the opposite and we’re seeing a lot of that these days.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
deogeo 8y ago
> true in some strict sense But it's not! Many intolerant societies became tolerant, whereas the paradox implies something like that is impossible!
- daenz 8y ago
  That's a good point. It's true that societies can lapse briefly (relatively) to intolerance, but on the whole, we seem to be constantly improving and moving towards a stable tolerance. People forget how brutal life has been historically, compared to now.
panarky 8y ago
I can't think of any examples where a group is falsely labeled intolerant as a pretext to discriminate against them.
- colordrops 8y ago
  There are plenty of conservatives unfairly bucketed with the extreme right and regularly called Nazis. Due to this, discussion between the left and the right has pretty much disappeared as conversation is always shut down by calling them fascists. Mind you I am a leftist, but also a strong proponent of free speech and open discussion so this trend is disturbing to me.
  - panarky 8y ago
    I keep hearing this, but every time I dig in to the details, I find that the person or group in question is actually intolerant by any reasonable definition of the word. I've yet to see any example of a truly tolerant individual or group being unfairly labeled as intolerant as a pretext to discriminate against them. If you have examples, I'd love to see them.
    - colordrops 8y ago
      It happens almost every day. The Catholic school boys vs the native American drummer for instance. Surely you saw the vitriol around that. If you watch the entire video of what transpired you'd find that it wasn't as clear cut as it was made out to be. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvpVRJ-NH4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvpVRJ-NH4
      - colordrops 8y ago
        A better discussion of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV7EDuL21M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV7EDuL21M
        weberc2 8y ago

danharaj 8y ago

It's already the case that you can ascribe any quality to any group by fiat and so therefore any criteria for being intolerant can be abused in the way that you say. There is nothing you can do to preclude dishonesty and sophistry.

weberc2 8y ago
I don’t know; we didn’t used to have such a problem with dishonesty and sophestry. Integrity and morality generally was sort of rewarded with social currency, but that was considered old-fashioned and we did away with it. It wasn’t a perfect system, but I think we may have taken a wrong turn.
- danharaj 8y ago
  I'm pretty sure Plato had been complaining about this stuff. I suppose we didn't use to have those problens before civilization became a thing.
  - weberc2 8y ago
    To be clear, I wasn't arguing that never before nor anywhere in the world was there ever issues with sophistry and dishonesty. Plato didn't live in America in the 1990s and 2000s.

colordrops 8y ago

And that is the reason why the definition of free speech is in the US is so encompassing and has so few exceptions.

claudiawerner 8y ago

The issue you seem to have with it is that people are convincing themselves a group is intolerant, so your implication is that the group isn't really intolerant. I actually only rarely see people argue for "unlimited" intolerance of some groups - often, for instance, they don't pursue a legal amendment to absolutely stop these people speaking, but rather suggest a valid tactic would be to not give them platforms. So the issue here ins't tolerance itsef, but rather its demarcation. I'm sure we would both agree that there are intolerant groups in society, and if the paradox holds any imperative force at all, then we ought to put our best philosophic and critical work towards finding in what cases that's true. That doesn't mean we should simply tolerate groups and stop looking into the matter.

weberc2 8y ago
> The issue you seem to have with it is that people are convincing themselves a group is intolerant, so your implication is that the group isn't really intolerant. The phenomenon I’m describing is one in which people invent reasons post-facto for why their target should be considered “intolerant” and why they deserve the hate and harassment levied at them. If an example helps, consider Damore or the Christakis. > I actually only rarely see people argue for "unlimited" intolerance of some groups - often, for instance, they don't pursue a legal amendment to absolutely stop these people speaking, but rather suggest a valid tactic would be to not give them platforms. I didn’t mean to imply that people were calling explicitly for unlimited intolerance, but rather that it is implied when someone “punished” severely a member of their outgroup for an alleged infraction that would be considered minor by any reasonable person if it were true at all. For example, a racist journalist doxxing a teenager in a slanderous piece, rationalizing the treatment as warranted because the teen was wearing a t-shirt for a musician who had one vaguely misogynistic song. > So the issue here ins't tolerance itsef, but rather its demarcation. I'm sure we would both agree that there are intolerant groups in society, and if the paradox holds any imperative force at all, then we ought to put our best philosophic and critical work towards finding in what cases that's true. That doesn't mean we should simply tolerate groups and stop looking into the matter. I’m not sure if I agree with this or not, so I’ll just rephrase—this paradox is used to justify mobbing, harassing, threatening, and assaulting a lot of innocent people (or people whose infractions were trivial). We should do our best to minimize intolerance, but mobs virtually always do the opposite and we’re seeing a lot of that these days.

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

deogeo 8y ago

> true in some strict sense But it's not! Many intolerant societies became tolerant, whereas the paradox implies something like that is impossible!

daenz 8y ago
That's a good point. It's true that societies can lapse briefly (relatively) to intolerance, but on the whole, we seem to be constantly improving and moving towards a stable tolerance. People forget how brutal life has been historically, compared to now.

panarky 8y ago

I can't think of any examples where a group is falsely labeled intolerant as a pretext to discriminate against them.

colordrops 8y ago
There are plenty of conservatives unfairly bucketed with the extreme right and regularly called Nazis. Due to this, discussion between the left and the right has pretty much disappeared as conversation is always shut down by calling them fascists. Mind you I am a leftist, but also a strong proponent of free speech and open discussion so this trend is disturbing to me.
- panarky 8y ago
  I keep hearing this, but every time I dig in to the details, I find that the person or group in question is actually intolerant by any reasonable definition of the word. I've yet to see any example of a truly tolerant individual or group being unfairly labeled as intolerant as a pretext to discriminate against them. If you have examples, I'd love to see them.
  - colordrops 8y ago
    It happens almost every day. The Catholic school boys vs the native American drummer for instance. Surely you saw the vitriol around that. If you watch the entire video of what transpired you'd find that it wasn't as clear cut as it was made out to be. See: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvpVRJ-NH4 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jVvpVRJ-NH4
    - colordrops 8y ago
      A better discussion of the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV7EDuL21M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MjV7EDuL21M
      - weberc2 8y ago